Almanac Music: The Fumes

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pretty Littles were a corker Indi Melbourne band for a good decade or more. Three gigs a week, four, seldom the headline. Foot soldiers, they just pushed on. Simple, fun, sometimes moving rock’n’roll.

 

They were that band you’ve never heard of, but know you should have. The band that you couldn’t figure out why they weren’t more successful, but they weren’t. But kept moving forward.

 

Four dudes pushing at pillars.

 

The lead singer/guitarist, Jack formed the Littles as a bucket list venture. To see if they could play in the same line-up as his three favourite bands. I thought that was the best motivation of all time. It wasn’t about them, it was about obsession, music. Being a fan.

 

He achieved the first on his list when I introduced him to Sid O’Neil from Vasco Era. They were very similar beasts, yet so different. Jack was from a conventional background and Sid was from Saturn. It was a beautiful mix.

 

 

 

 

I was working for a rock mag when, after years of slugging it out, the Pretty Littles were set to fulfil the other 2/3rds of their bucket list in the one night, so I flew over from Tassie to write about it, if only as an excuse to bare witness. This, surely, was what it was about.

 

Obsessions.

 

The first band were headlining at the Northcote Hotel. The Pretty Littles were second of about six bands on. They did their set to an audience of three, then had to get to the next gig before their idles had even entered the building. Bucket List Part II achieved, in the most rock’n’roll way possible.

 

So goddamn anonymous.

 

Packed up, we were in two cars, pushing through Saturday night traffic chaos, to get to the Espie in St Kilda, where they were second on the card, to a brilliant Byron Bay two piece, the Fumes. I could see why Jack liked them so much. Simple, super raw, blues based rock. It pushed. It grinded and slid and drove. The guitar was out of this world.

 

The drive there was the sweetest thing. Anticipation, fret, humour, the swordplay of two cars, containing four great mates, within a sea of a million vehicles, all late for something.

 

Someone should do a book. Gig cars. Band vans. Whatever. Tell the story of each mode of transport.

 

By the time we got to the Espie, it was a river of human traffic. Everybody crushed, shuffled and moved somewhere and nowhere while living their lives one night a week, as hard as they could, or drowning their sorrows.

 

The Fumes lead singer was called Sleeve. An old school Wildman – tall, solid, with a solid beard, denim jeans, bare feet, hairy chest and bourbon on his breath. Intimidating.

 

He entered and exited the band room without so much as eye contact.

 

But, shit, this was Jack’s Bucket list. I dagged him about it as we all crushed into a booth to eat pizzas, and the wall of people continued to shuffle past us.

 

 

“Go! Talk to him!”

 

“Nah…” Jack gave a sheepish grin.

 

“He’s right there! In the main room!”

 

“Nah…”

 

“Why not!? For fuck’s sake!”

 

“He’s like that with all his heroes,” one of the band members said.

 

“Dummies up,” agreed the other.

 

 

Having heard his band so often, having known him, it was odd to see music affect him like this. Turn him turtle.

 

“I have to do something, I’ll be right back,” I said, casually, and went into the human orgy that was the main room and waited.

 

Sleeve went to the bar, I saddled up. He was ordering four neat shots of something, a few beers.

 

“Sleeve, I flew from Tassie just for this show…”

 

“Yer arms must be tired. Haw, haw!” he made to leave.

 

Up close, like all the good ones, he had a mighty presence.

 

“Yeah, yeah. Listen mate,” I said. “You’re the reason the support band even exists. The lead, Jack, worships you.”

 

“Oh…” Sleeve hesitated that bit. Not enough to stop a man.

 

“He got an early Ibanez Squire guitar just because you play one.”

 

 

I spoke his language, eye-to-eye. You don’t get to be as good as he was without your instrument being everything.

 

 

“…Jack, y’reckon?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

 

He gave an honest look, a grunt, and slipped, with drinks, into the wall of moving people.

 

 

Later, I was in the band room with the Pretty Littles as they were setting up, when Sleeve politely knocked on the door and walked in, looking as awkward as all fuck.

 

“You’re Jack?” he said, and they shook hands, with more awkwardness, and began to talk, Jack grinning his head off. I don’t know why, but I slipped out of the room. Maybe I just thought that was their business.

 

A good five minute later, Sleeve walked out of the band room, looking a little rattled, a bit confused at being nice to someone. He searched the crowd, saw me, through the shuffling mob, about 20 feet away. We locked eyes, he gave a nod, and was gone again.

 

A jackaroo, a cowboy with no name, a bad-arsed, bourbon breathed musician.

 

These small things that are everything.

 

When it works, the Espie is a person, one obsessed with music, as if it’s a way of life, air. Each room is a body part, its main stage the heart. The people are its blood, pulsing, as they shuffle along veins and arteries, to get to bars, toilets, pool tables, kitchens, each other.

 

The music is the heartbeat. When the band kicks in, the crowd, as a whole, doubles as muscles. Sound is nothing more or less than vibrations. Everything, life, as always, becomes about motion. When it works, song after song, I can hear the front doors breathing….

 

Later that night, while playing, filling the building, every one of its rooms, with sweat and heaving motion, Sleeve gave a “Special shout out to The Pretty Littles, who were fucking brilliant.”

 

Then went back to smacking everyone and anyone about with his guitar, as it wove and gripped and dominated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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